Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

“For all his games at escape, for all his secret passageways, and picked locks, and poisoned Joe Freezy, I see that Donovan buigh…” She spreads her arms to take in the room. “… is not here. And this tells me that all such attempts failed. Else, he would be telling me this tale—and with far more relish, as I recall the man—and you would be sitting less comfortably.”

Olafsdottr’s laugh is like the trilling of a bird on the wing. “Noo. The Fates rule all, and some things are not to be. Our two destinies were intertwined. I meant what I said, that he and I would become great companions; although the Fates are cruel and have a sense of humor, so that while the foreseeing was true, the companionship was not what anyone expected. The joke, as always, is on us; though seldom to our amusement. Play, harper, and your strings our tale promote and with your chords catch out the discord note.”

The next day, the Fudir broke Rigardo-ji’s security code and entered the smuggler’s files. These proved as dull as any collection of legitimate invoices, as the sundry planetary and state governments around the Periphery were notional in what goods they chose to blockade. During the Great Cleansing, the peoples of Terra had been scattered widely on the hither side of the Rift and unequally gifted as regards terraformation. Some worlds had in plenty what others lacked entire. Thus, it was worth a rich man’s purse to smuggle boxes of oatmeal cookies from Hawthorne Rose to Ramage; or tobacco sticks onto Gladiola.

The smuggler’s most recent invoice was for the delivery to Foreganger Prime of a secret protocol entered into by Abyalon with the People of Foreganger. He had been returning to Abyalon with the chopped protocol—and a gift called “the Frog Prince” from the People to the Molnar of the Cinel Cynthia deep in the Hadramoo.

The People’s Navy swore revenge on the pirates of the Hadramoo,the Pedant remembered, after the hijacking and massacre of the tour liner Merry v Starinu, four standard years ago.

Perhaps the gift is a peace offering.

The Fudir was doubtful. “The People of Foreganger make peace on their own terms, usually after some notable vengeance.”

“One way or the other,” Donovan said, “Foreganger won’t be happy that their present was hijacked along with the courier’s ship. Pedant, where was the Starinu hijacked?”

Off Abyalon.

How much you want to bet, said the Sleuth, that this “Frog Prince” is some sort of vengeance weapon that Abyalon hired from the People to use against the Cynthians?

“No bet,” said Donovan.

A bomb, do you think?

“Wonderful,” said the Fudir. “A bomb on board. We didn’t have near enough problems.”

If we can find where it’s stashed,the Brute suggested, we maybe can use it to knock off Olafsdottr and take the ship from her.

“If it’s a big enough bomb to take out the Molnar,” Donovan pointed out, “it’s too big to set off aboard a monoship. A takeover weapon must be one that can kill or incapacitate the Ravn without killing or incapacitating us.”

cried Inner Child.

The scarred man swung abruptly away from the holostage, saw nothing, turned the other way.

More nothing. The ward room was empty.

Where did you see it, Child?

“Sleuth, you and Fudir check it out.”

The Fudir took control of the scarred man and went to the back wall, where the nautical instruments were mounted.

The wood paneling was genuine, and done up in a basket-weave pattern of vertical and horizontal slats, so that the wall seemed some vast sort of wickerwork. The Fudir glanced toward the console’s swivel chair. If Inner Child had glimpsed something in this direction … The Sleuth did the geometry … it would have stood approximately—here. He ran his hands along the interstices.

You’re thinking a secret door, ain’t ya, Sleuthy?

It was a logical deduction, and logic was the Sleuth’s forte. The smuggler’s ship was riddled with such things. The Fudir’s explorations had already found secret cabinets with jewels and stolen artwork intended for clandestine delivery in the Old Planets. Nothing to use as a weapon, except perhaps for the Peacock vase.

I just thought of something, said the Sleuth.

And you’re gonna tell us.

The road to the Hadramoo splits off here at Abyalon. What happens if we don’t deliver this “Frog Prince”thing to the Molnar?

Who cares?

No, I don’t mean what will the Molnar do. Or even what will the Abyalonic Council or the People of Foreganger do. I mean, what will the Frog Prince do?

The scarred man paused in his examination of the wall. If the Abyaloni and the People were deploying a vengeance weapon against the Cynthians, there might be a delicate matter of timing involved.

As in time bomb?

“Abyalon wouldn’t agree to that,” the Fudir muttered.

“Foreganger might,” Donovan replied, “without telling Abyalon.”

Wonderful. If the Frog Prince were a bomb set to detonate when it reached the Hadramoo and Olafsdottr took the ship to Megranome Road instead, the thing would detonate instead when they were on the Tightrope.

Who says it’s on a timer? asked Pollyanna. Or even that it’s a bomb?

If Silky had not heightened the scarred man’s senses with a cocktail of enzymes, he might not have felt the light puff of air that wafted from between two vertical slats. If Inner Child had not mentioned poison gas, he might not have flinched from it. The Sleuth explored the slats with his fingertips and identified the edge of a door; and once he had the edge of it, the rest of the outline followed easily.

No obvious handle. The Fudir began to push and twist the various instruments fastened to the wall.

It’s probably not booby-trapped, Pollyanna said.

The scarred man hesitated.

“Pollyanna!” said Donovan.

She’s right. What sort of fool booby-traps his own ship?

Inner Child suggested.

Nah. He’d set locks, not bombs.The Brute twisted the chronometer, jiggled the barometer, pushed the binnacle. It was only when he turned the knob on the compass that they heard a click and the panel swung gently inward.

“You can come out now, Ravn, dear,” he cooed.

But no one stepped forth and, when Donovan entered he saw it was not a cache but a passage. The back wall was a blind. To the right a short connection joined a second passage that seemed to run lengthwise up the ship—probably the one behind the cabinets. To the left, was a narrow corridor and it was from that direction that he heard the soft sound of a closing latch.

Inner Child edged around the blind, saw that the passage was empty and crept gingerly through it. The Fudir made no sound with his footfalls; and even his breath was still as death.

Was this an elaborate ambush? But Olafsdottr had no need of ambushes. She could have executed him at any time. She was keeping him alive because her side wanted to use him in their civil war. So what was this about? Just playing stealth games? There were more exercises than the merely physical, and boredom was a wondrous motivator.

The passageway made a dogleg and, passing through a second door, Donovan emerged into the cold well of the pantry, surrounded by cuts of harvested meats, vegetables, and juices in rows of low-entropy receptacles. The door he had come through had masqueraded as a rack of shelves.

Leaving the cold well, Donovan passed into the pantry. A wintermelon, an arm’s length long, sat on the carving board. Succumbing to impulse, he pulled a carving knife from its scabbard and holding the blade by the point, threw it from the far side of the pantry. The blade performed a satisfying somersault before sinking to its hilt into the melon.